Jim Mellett: Vatican Cover-ups Unfairly Tarnish Decent Priests and Nuns

By Jim Mellett
The News-Times
March 12, 2012

http://www.newstimes.com/opinion/article/Jim-Mellett-Vatican-cover-ups-unfairly-tarnish-3400341.php

So Cardinal Egan has retracted his apology for his callous inaction regarding clerical abuse in the Diocese of Bridgeport. Let us never forget that sexual abuse of children is a felony in every state, and not a matter that can be referred for a clerical referral. Incidents such as these should be reported to the police as soon as possible.

Recently, I visited my grandchildren in Chicago and ran geology lectures in their respective schools.

As I looked out over this sea of eager, innocent faces, it dawned on me that hundreds of thousands of children like these were fondled, caressed, abused, raped, and sodomized by Catholic clergy. Their lives were destroyed and the guilty priests got away with their crimes.

I wanted an opportunity to expand on the subject. This will not be the last word on this issue, by me or anyone else.

I attended a Catholic grammar school in upper Manhattan in the 1940s and '50s. Our parish protected a pedophile priest who abused altar boys in the '50s and '60s. He was finally brought to justice (of sorts) in 2004, 50 years later, and in his deposition admitted that even had be been discovered earlier, he knew he would not be punished.

This is not a new issue with the Church nor is it limited to Catholic clergy.

The problem is far more widespread than anyone has imagined. In a poll taken in Ireland, 25 percent of adults reported they were victims of clerical abuse as children. If the poll is true and you do the math, it would amount to more than 700,000 people in one country alone.

Figures this large do not suggest a few bad apples, but a systemic, inherent, and protracted framework for abuse.

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If anyone has the courage, look into the 2005 grand jury report of clerical abuse cases in the Diocese of Philadelphia that took place while Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol were "in charge."

The report runs 732 pages. It takes a strong stomach to read about how a gang of more than 60 priests abused hundreds of children over a period of 40 years. The abuse was grotesque and unimaginable, and included young girls who were sent for abortions after being impregnated by priests.

Sexual abuse by clergy has been going on for centuries with only sporadic attempts by church authorities to quell it.

Most Catholics don't know that the confessional box was started in the 16th century as a result of the Spanish Inquisition's investigations of priests who were having sex with their penitents. The Inquisition did not just deal with heretics and witches. Clerical sexual misbehavior was so widespread that the church confined priests to wooden boxes to keep them away from their parishioners.

The real gulf is between the Vatican, the male-dominated hierarchy, and the rest of the Church.

The Vatican is above all a political organization, and they are more interested in sweeping scandals under the rug. The real church, and the ones being harmed by the Vatican's foot dragging, are the thousands of decent nuns, brothers, and priests who are toiling in the vineyards and doing good works.

They are being unfairly tarnished by the Vatican's centuries old cover-ups. That is what makes me really angry.